Despite the heightened induced stress upon sitting down at your desk to check email, there are solutions. A lot of these productivity fixes occur with habit changes in how you manage email, but why not have an email client that is actually enjoyable to use and makes email management much more effective?

What if your email client offered you the best tools so that email was actually fun, productive and didn’t cause a brain aneurysm?

Step 1 – Get Mailbird

Download and install Mailbird, the best email client for Windows. Don’t take our word for it, IT World and PC World both think so too.

Step 2 – Watch it in Action

Watch this video, so you know exactly what to expect and what to do when you launch Mailbird.

You can also read about the key features in Mailbird on our blog here.

Step 3 – Improve Your Email Habits, Reduce Stress

Here’s the part that involves changing your email habits. Try these and make your way to experiencing a better way to email.

Don’t start the day with your inbox. Instead work first on the things you have scheduled the day before, take control of what gets done in your day to stay productive by doing a little day-before planning. Your inbox shouldn’t dictate what you do in your day.

Batch process emails. Set dedicated times to process emails and deal with them during that time immediately, close your email when you are getting things done.

Create an inbox system. Deal with the emails right away, don’t let them sit in your inbox. Delete them if you don’t need to do anything with them. Archive them if you would like to reference them later. Reply/Forward/Delegate the actions requested in your email. Otherwise add them to your calendar, to do list or task list. Try using Asana and Google Calendar which are both available with Mailbird apps (the three dots in the bottom left of the main Mailbird window).

Use one email platform to manage all emails. Mailbird offers multi-account support which is awesome for maintaining one hub for all your email communication. Instructions to setting it up are here.

Send less email = get less email. This is just true, and a matter a realizing that email is not always the appropriate channel of communication. You can easily minimize emails by walking over to your colleague and asking a question or have a discussion about next steps in your joint goals and tasks. It’s also ok to pick up the phone sometimes to talk things through with your co-worker, business partner or client.

Use the “5 Sentence Rule”. This forces you to get to the point and communicate much more efficiently and effectively.

Use “EOM” which stands for “End of Message” in your subject lines. Should you want to give a quick update to someone via email, put the main point in the subject line and an EOM at the end to indicate that was all the info.

Unsubscribe to newsletters that you end up spending more of your time deleting anyways. Remove that step and unsubscribe to those newsletters that only create more “noise” in your inbox.

Don’t let long email conversations go on forever, end them preemptively for things like scheduling appointments where you can suggest a time and let the other person know that you assume that works unless they reply otherwise. You could also offer suggested times that provide your free time so the other person can pick the one that works for both of you.

Speed read your emails and cut the time spent on this in half. Have you heard of the 2 minute rule coined by David Allen on Getting Things Done? Basically, you only manage or take action with email if it takes 2 mins or less. If not you add it to your to do list for later or use starring or important flag features to remind you to follow up with those emails at a later time if it takes more than 2 mins. Well, we challenge that you throw that idea out the window and process every email in your inbox during dedicated times, immediately. You can cut the time in half using the first Email Speed Reader and cut email replies so they are short and succinct using Mailbird’s special In-line Reply feature.

Habits take time to change, so don’t wait any longer. Try implementing some of these strategies now, if you haven’t already, and start to see an improvement in your manageability and relationship with email. Also here is a bonus, a fantastic resource to help you along the way with discovering better email management with Mailbird here.

Email is one of the best communication tools used today, and over time we’ve learned to abuse it. By improving your email habits and using an awesome email client that helps you take control of your time again, you will see a significant increase in your productivity.

Remember it’s not crazy if you get through your emails, its crazy if you don’t.